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A New Semester (updated)

SCCS is back in action for Fall 2010, with a full slate of projects on our plate.

First up is updating the online Cygnet, which is more important now that the printed Cygnet has been discontinued. Just as soon as Admissions sends us everyone’s updated housing info, we will have a Cygnet for you.
Edit: We have received all the pieces from the administration, and the updated Cygnet, which has pictures, Swatmail addresses and housing info for most students, is now live at cygnet.sccs.swarthmore.edu.

Next we will be taking stock of the Video Pit. The projector is not quite brand new anymore but still quite shiny. We will be testing all the games, replacing any scratched discs and updating outdated games (I’ve heard some whispers about FIFA 11). Some new instruments may also be in order. Across the hall in the Media Lounge, we are replacing some of the mice and keyboards and maybe even getting a few new computers.

In the neverending quest to provide a clean Video Pit for students and not for Ville rats, we are hard at work on an RFID card-swipe system for the Video Pit and Media Lounge doors.

Both our equipment/space reservation system Concierge and our task request system Los (for creating accounts, mailing lists, databases, etc) are due for major updates.

In the next few weeks we will start the “hiring” process, for anyone that wants to join the team of sysadmins. Also, a party to kick off the year is necessary. If you’re interested in updates about parties, new games, and/or “hiring”, we encourage you to join the sccs-interest mailing list or watch this space.

Posted in Announcements.

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By Alex Burka – September 2, 2010

Content Removal Policy

We here at SCCS believe that users should make the final decision about the content they host. We even achieved brief national fame when we hosted the Diebold memos under intense pressure to remove them. That being said, there are circumstances when people want others’ content to be removed for good reason (personal attacks, etc.). Instead of just removing the content we will instead mediate between the user and the removal requester.

The process:

  1. If a page we host is obviously libelous/contains serious hate-speech/is illegal/etc, we will remove it.
  2. If someone other than a page’s original author requests a page be removed, we direct them to contact the original author to contact us to remove it if they are willing.
  3. If there is no way of contacting the original author (with a reasonable amount of effort), we will edit the page in question so that search engines will no longer index it/will remove it from their index next time it’s crawled.

We believe that this process is fair for all parties, but welcome comments.

Posted in Policies.

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By SCCS Staff – May 4, 2010

Web Space

We have four options for web space at SCCS:

Groups
For groups, you can either get

1) an SCCS WordPress Site here ,
or

2) you can get more generic space which you can edit by hand or with programs like dreamweaver.

To do the second option, go here and request: “Create a new org page”. Everyone who will edit needs their own SCCS account, so go to the same page and “Apply for an SCCS account”. Then email staff@sccs.swarthmore.edu with the names of the users and the organization username. Please give us some time to approve your requests.

Personal Web Sites
For your own site, we also have two options:

1) An SCCS WordPress Site- easy to update and versatile, it’s not just for blogs. Go here for instructions.

2) A more traditional space where you can edit by hand or using a program like dreamweaver. Apply for an SCCS user account here . Once the account is approved, you can put files in your web-docs directory and they will be available at sccs.swarthmore.edu/~cschimm1 (insert your username instead of cschimm1!)

Posted in Resources.

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By SCCS Staff – March 25, 2010

Creating a New WordPress Org Page

The content from this post has been moved here.

Posted in Uncategorized.

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By SCCS Staff – March 25, 2010

Return of The Pit: Game Night Party

Return of The Pit: Game Night
8PM, SCCS Lounge

Got game? The Game Pit is finally back and with a brand new projector. To celebrate its return SCCS is throwing a gaming night and dedicating both rooms to gaming. It’s Rock Band in the Lounge and any game in the Pit. Plus pizza, snacks and refreshment.

Games include: Rock Band, Smash Bros., Mario Kart, FIFA ’10, Halo ODST, Warcraft and more!

Posted in Parties.

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By kosei – March 19, 2010

PROJECTOR

HOPEFULLY FINAL UPDATE: The pit is now fully operational! The projector shipped to us was defective in that the lamp exploded, but now we have a new one and it works. The pit will probably be locked most of the time while we figure out security. Make your reservation online at http://sccs.swarthmore.edu/reservations or email staff@sccs.swarthmore.edu.

Apparently much of the campus has been waiting with bated breath for the return of the SCCS Video Pit (personally, I wouldn’t mind having some more Rock Band in my life). I am happy to report that the projector has arrived. This afternoon we will be applying copious amounts of elbow grease and hopefully getting it securely mounted on the ceiling, at which point the pit will be fully operational again.

At least on a temporary basis, there will be new hours, because we obviously don’t want the equipment vandalized again. Public Safety will be unlocking the pit only between the hours of 6pm and 3am (it will close earlier on certain nights when we are worried about intoxicated individuals). At other times during the day, students are perfectly free to use it, but you will need to email staff@sccs.swarthmore.edu, and a staff member will take care of unlocking the pit for you and locking it when you leave. The new restricted hours are not to keep students out, but to guard against unauthorized (i.e. non-College) access.

I will post an update when the projector is up and running. Be sure to reserve some time for you and your friends through Concierge, our equipment/space reservation system.

Posted in Announcements, Policies, Status.

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By Alex Burka – February 5, 2010

Scheduled Downtime for Heron 11pm, Tues 1/26/2010

A lot of the software on heron (the ssh and email server) is slightly out of date, and on the distribution itself we are a major version behind. Of course, it’s Linux, you just upgrade it and never reboot, right? Unfortunately, we do need to take it down briefly tonight. Downtime will start at 11pm EST and should last no longer than one hour. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Update: Heron is back up, and upgrades are underway so the system may be a little slow and will probably be restarted again tomorrow night (I will post another update if that is the case.)
Update #2: The upgrades are finished and it doesn’t look like Heron will be restarted tonight.

Posted in Downtime.

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By Alex Burka – January 26, 2010

Video Pit Projector Temporarily Out of Commission

Somehow, over break, the projector in the video pit got covered with an unidentifiable clear sticky substance, and no longer turns on. Currently the best hypothesis seems to be cleaning products dripping down from Paces (because, really, would someone throw soda at the ceiling?). We’ll post updates here on the progress of restoring the pit to full operation. Until then, you might have to do some work. Sorry.

Update, 1/23/10: Capital replacement will replace our capital. We have an SBC date tomorrow, so things should be getting underway.

Posted in Status.

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By Alex Burka – January 18, 2010

Planned Downtime 12/28

Facilities found some kind of problem with the power grid, so they’re shutting us (and the rest of campus) off while they’re working on it. We’ll be going down late morning or early afternoon on Monday the 28th, and coming back hopefully that night. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Happy holidays,
Staff

Posted in Downtime.

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By dougal – December 23, 2009

Keys!

Found some keys in the video pit- They are at the post office.We’ve locked them up in the camera closet so nobody takes them. Please come down during office hours or email staff@sccs.swarthmore.edu to claim them!

Since these are your keys and we don’t want someone else to take them, please let us know when you were in SCCS so we can look through the camera footage to make sure it was really you! We figure you’ll appreciate the security measure…

Posted in Announcements.

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By Alex Burka – December 6, 2009